There are numerous challenges to effectively monitoring vehicle compartment activities while operating a vehicle. Generally, the operator of a vehicle needs to focus their attention on the control and external conditions surrounding the vehicle. As such, the operator of a vehicle is not able to focus any lengthy amount of attention to either the contents and/or passengers of the vehicle.
For example, the operator of an automobile must keep their eyes on the roadway to navigate and negotiate traffic. Devices such as rear and side view mirrors are designed and positioned so as to minimize the amount of time for which the driver must divert their attention from the road ahead. Some activities which could unsafely distract a vehicle operator from their navigation and traffic negotiation duties include when children or occupants are playing, rough-housing, misbehaving, requesting attention, or the like, while the vehicle is in motion. Traffic safety instructors regularly educate drivers not to be distracted by their passengers in a manner that they neglect their attention to the roadway.
In earlier times, there were no guidelines for the placement and restraint of children, and particularly infants, babies, and toddlers within a vehicle. Recently, studies have been performed and recommendations made that children be restrained in safety seats in the back seat of a vehicle, such as an automobile, and that they be positioned to face the back of a vehicle in which they are placed. Although it has been found that a child is significantly safer when restrained and positioned in this manner, problems arise because the adults when positioned in front of the child within the vehicle cannot see the child and the child cannot see the adults. This arrangement makes it difficult, for example, to ascertain the mood of the child, to see whether the child has lost a toy that he or she was holding, to see if the child has put an object in his or her mouth, to communicate with and reassure the child in response to the child's actions, and other such situations. This poses significant difficulties for the single occupant adult who is operating the vehicle.
For example, if the child is crying or sick, a natural response of the single occupant adult is to turn their attention to that individual and away from the roadway and traffic. In those cases where the child is in a rearward facing car seat, the problem is further complicated. That is, the single occupant adult, oftentimes the child's parent, cannot simply glance in the vehicle's rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of what is transpiring. Rather, the single occupant adult is required to divert their attention from the vehicle operation in a much more extensive manner, often physically turning their torso and arching backward over the back of the front passenger compartment's seat in an effort to observe what is occurring.
This activity, or distraction, is much too involved and time consuming for a driver to be able to safely continue vehicle operation on a roadway, whether on a highway or neighborhood street. And, oftentimes the alternative of simply pulling the vehicle over and stopping to inspect the situation is not a readily available option, such as, for example, when the vehicle is in the middle of several lanes of traffic on a high-speed freeway, when there is no time to pull off the roadway, when the roadway has no shoulder, or the shoulder is in poor condition, etc.
Even when a passenger is present in the front of the passenger compartment of a vehicle significant attention can be drawn by the movement of the passenger. The passenger's safety is also at greater risk. Traditionally, in these situations it was necessary for a passenger to unhook his or her seat belt and turn toward the back of the vehicle. Often, the passenger would need to bend over the seat to see the child. This movement is likely to put the passenger at a greater risk of injury in the event of an accident and will also likely attract the attention of the driver of the vehicle.
Another alternative is to have a person sit in the back seat with the child. There are many times in which the driver and the child are the only occupants of a vehicle and, therefore, this is not a practical choice in many situations.
One approach to resolve the above described conflicts of safe vehicle operation, navigation, and supervision of the vehicle compartment's occupants and contents has been to place or mount a mirror in the passenger compartment of the vehicle. In this fashion, the vehicle operator can use the mirror combination of the vehicle's rearview mirror and this additionally rear seat mounted mirror to observer the activities of a child in a rearward facing child seat in the rear passenger compartment of the vehicle.
Unfortunately, the observation capability will often not resolve the complication or difficulty the child is experiencing. For instance, when a child is crying they can simply need some form of visual contact with the parent. Under the above approach, the child may well not see their parent back by looking into the rear seat mounted mirror. Additionally, the rear seat mounted mirror can be jolted during travel, thus shifting the additional mirror out of the correct reflection alignment for proper observation. Further, the child seat and child can be located on the opposite side of the rear passenger compartment in the next car trip and, therefore, the mirror will need to be remounted to provide the correct reflected image.
Another problem with the above approach is that it does not provide the flexibility to operably select between two or more different focal points without physically moving the mirror. Additionally, this system can work in many vehicles, but not all vehicles have a back seat configuration that is suitable for mounting a mirror in a position to allow the driver to see the child. For example, the surface of the back seat can be too high to allow for proper placement of the mirror or the back seat can consist of bucket seating and therefore, there may not physically be a suitable place to mount the mirror.
The child also may not be positioned to provide a suitable view. For example, the child can be positioned directly behind the driver and, in some cases the mirror cannot be positioned to suitably see the child. Additionally, in many cases the rearview mirror needs to be adjusted to allow the driver to see the child. This adjustment can reduce the amount of traffic the driver can see. Therefore, it is generally desirable to have a display that is not positioned for viewing within the viewing area of the rearview mirror itself.
Furthermore, although the use of a mirror does allow the driver to see the child and also allows the child to see toward the front of the vehicle, the mirror does not provide the child with a view of the driver's face and, therefore, it can be difficult to effectively reassure a child with this approach. It would be desirable to have a system that allows for the driver to see the child and for the child to also see the driver.
For these and other reasons there continues to be a need for improved methods, systems, and apparatus for monitoring the occupant's and contents of a vehicle's interior compartments.